


Fear of Flying

by sunflowerseedsandscience



Series: Early On [3]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: Episode: s01e01 Pilot, F/M, Unresolved Romantic Tension, Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 13:16:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,233
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8163298
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sunflowerseedsandscience/pseuds/sunflowerseedsandscience
Summary: "I'm not so sure you and me alone in your apartment is the best idea just now, Scully," he says, his voice soft.  "Go on up and get some sleep, okay?  I'm more than awake enough to get myself home.  I'll see you at work tomorrow."  His smile is gentle, and she understands: this isn't a rejection of her, merely a lack of confidence in his own self-control.  She gathers her purse from the floor of the car."I'll see you tomorrow, Mulder," she says, smiling back at him.  "Thanks for the ride."





	

The flight from Oregon is delayed for over an hour, and when it finally takes off, it's in the running for the roughest flight Scully's ever had within the first ten minutes. This time, unlike on the flight out, she and Mulder are seated together. When they first sit down, she worries it might get awkward, after their display in the graveyard the previous night... but once the plane begins to pitch and yaw, she's concerned only with what seems to be the very real prospect of her imminent death.

She jumps about a mile when Mulder suddenly places his hand over hers on the armrest. "You okay, Scully?" She looks up to find his grey-green eyes inches from her own. He looks every bit as unfazed by the turbulence as he had been on the flight out, when he'd thrown out a carefree quip immediately after the plane had plummeted fifty feet in ten seconds.

"I, uh...." She cringes at her admission, can't believe she's telling him. "I really hate flying." He raises his eyebrows.

"You picked a hell of a career, then," he says. "You know we're gonna be doing a lot of this, right?"

"Normally, I'd take a couple of Benadryl and try to sleep through it," Scully explains. "But the box was in my motel room, so...." She doesn't need to finish the sentence. Her toiletry bag went up in smoke twenty-four hours ago, along with her laptop, her favorite heels, and the terrible blazer she'd borrowed from her mother because she hadn't had time to go shopping for work clothes before her assignment began.

"We could've stopped and picked up some more," says Mulder. "We had time."

"I know," says Scully, "but in all the excitement, I completely forgot." The plane gives a sudden sharp shudder, and Scully gasps and squeezes her eyes shut. She feels pressure on her hand, and looking down, she sees that Mulder is clasping it in his own. "I'm fine," she says. The corner of his mouth lifts in a wry smile.

"Of course you are," he says, but he doesn't let go of her hand, and she doesn't pull hers away.

 

\--------------

 

There's no one to meet her when they land, but she wasn't expecting there to be. Ethan isn't due back from his family reunion for another two days. 

"Anyone picking you up?" Mulder asks her as they walk down the concourse. "Or do you have a car here?"

"None of the above," says Scully. "I took a cab to the airport."

"Want a ride home?" asks Mulder. "My car's in long-term parking. It's no trouble."

"Where do you live?"

"Alexandria." Scully frowns.

"Mulder, I live in Georgetown. That's in the opposite direction," she argues. "I can take a taxi. It's really no trouble."

"Nah, come on," he insists. "I'm still wired from the case and the flight. A nice, long drive'll help me unwind." Scully remains hesitant... but his smile is disarming, and she's not quite ready to return to solitude just yet. Plus, money saved on cab fare can go towards replacing her her destroyed heels. She deliberates for a moment longer; then, with a decisive nod, she follows Mulder to the garage.

The drive to Scully's apartment is made almost entirely in silence. Scully speaks only to give Mulder directions, but beyond that, they do not talk. In the quiet, the tension humming between them is palpable, a living thing that Scully feels pulling at her, trying to draw her across the center console. It takes a conscious effort to remain on her side of the car. She's certain that Mulder, who is gripping the steering wheel unnecessarily hard, can feel it, too. She wonders if his mind is with hers, back in the shared motel room, waiting to dry off, trying desperately to stay on the opposite sides of the bed, to keep their eyes off of one another's exposed skin.

Mulder pulls up in front of Scully's building and parks. He kills the engine and hits the trunk release, then chuckles, shaking his head.

"I was about to get your carry-on bag out of the trunk," he says, "and then I remembered that neither of us _have_ a carry-on bag anymore." She laughs. "I'm really sorry about that," Mulder continues. "I'll buy you a new suitcase, if you want."

"It wasn't your fault, Mulder," she says. "There's not even any proof it was connected to the case at all. For all we know, it was just faulty wiring. The place was certainly old enough." Mulder gives her a look that tells her exactly what he thinks of that idea. "Anyway, I should get up to my apartment." He looks out her window, up at her building.

"Looks like a really nice place," he says.

"It is," she replies. She can see her living room window from here, the light turned on thanks to the timer her father had insisted on installing when she'd first rented the place, in spite of her insistence that the building was in a good neighborhood. She glances at Mulder, who still hasn't turned the car back on, and thinks of her empty apartment, and before she can stop herself, the words are coming out of her mouth. "Did you want to come up? Have a cup of coffee?" He turns to look at her, his eyebrows raised. "I just mean... it's getting late, and you have twice as far to drive as you would have if I'd just taken a cab home. I can brew you some coffee, put it in a travel mug to take with you." Mulder frowns slightly.

"What about... Ethan? Is that his name? Is he home?" 

"No, he's out of town for a few more days yet." Mulder appears to consider this for a moment, but finally, he shakes his head, giving her a sad smile.

"I'm not so sure you and me alone in your apartment is the best idea just now, Scully," he says, his voice soft. "Go on up and get some sleep, okay? I'm more than awake enough to get myself home. I'll see you at work tomorrow." His smile is gentle, and she understands: this isn't a rejection of her, merely a lack of confidence in his own self-control. She gathers her purse from the floor of the car.

"I'll see you tomorrow, Mulder," she says, smiling back at him. "Thanks for the ride."

He stays parked out front until she is safely inside.

 

\------

 

The first thing Scully notices, when she unlocks her front door, is that the light is all wrong. The lamp that's switched on isn't the one in the corner by the window, the one on the timer; it's the larger one behind the sofa. She pauses in the doorway, frowning.

The second thing she notices is the flowers. An enormous spray of gardenias, in a vase, in the middle of her coffee table. She can smell them all the way from the door. She puts her purse down on the table near the door and ventures further in.

The sound of footsteps startles her, and she turns to see Ethan, coming out of her bedroom, looking surprised.

"What are you doing here?" she asks. "It's only Thursday night. You said you wouldn't be home until Sunday at the earliest."

"I, uh... I left early," says Ethan. Scully's confusion deepens.

"Why?" she asks. "You've been looking forward to this for months. It's all you've been talking about." Ethan stuffs his hands in his pockets and shuffles his feet.

"Yeah, I know," he says, looking down. "But that was when I thought you'd be with me."

"Ethan," she sighs, "I've had a really long couple of days, and I'm not in the mood to-"

"That's not what I'm-"

"And if you're skipping the whole reunion just to make me feel guilty for not going, I'm not going to-"

"That's not why I came home, Dana," Ethan says. "I came home because my mom was making everything awkward and I didn't want to put up with it for the whole weekend."

"Why was she making it awkward?" asks Scully, brushing him and stalking to the kitchen. "Just because I wasn't there?" Ethan shakes his head.

"Because I told her to stop criticizing you," says Ethan. Scully freezes and turns to face him, eyes wide.

"You did?" Ethan nods.

"I told her that she doesn't have to like you, but she does have to respect that I love you and I want to be with you," he says. "And Dad backed me up, which made it that much more uncomfortable. By the end of my first day there, Mom was only talking to both of us when she wanted to snipe at us." He shrugs. "It seemed easier to just come home. I didn't know when you'd be back... but I figured this way I'd be here to welcome you home when you did." He gestures back towards the living room. "The flowers are to say I'm sorry for-" That's as far as he gets before Scully flies at him and kisses him. 

When the phone rings, hours later, Ethan is passed out cold on his side of the bed. He wakes up just as Scully is replacing the phone in its cradle.

"Whowassat?" he asks sleepily, not opening his eyes.

"That was Mulder," she says. "My new partner." Ethan props himself up on one elbow and peers blearily at her.

"Calling you at home?" he asks. "At this hour?" Scully sighs and flops onto her back.

"Yeah, I don't think he sleeps much," she says. 

"Doesn't seem to have much of a sense of boundaries, either," observes Ethan. Scully opens her mouth to reply that he has no idea... but stops herself just in time. It's the sort of comment that will require an explanation, and she knows that even if all she tells him is that Mulder tried to kiss her, the fragile peace she and Ethan have just rebuilt will be destroyed. Even if Ethan doesn't know how readily she responded (a memory that she's been trying to banish from her mind all evening), just knowing that Mulder had been so bold will be enough to put him off the idea of their working together. Scully trusts that Mulder will respect her choice to give Ethan another shot, but she doesn't expect Ethan to be nearly so trusting.

It's the last thought she has before drifting off to sleep: the dread of the conversation with Mulder, which might not happen tomorrow but will almost certainly be soon, in which he'll find out that when she told him to ask again later, "later" is probably going to end up meaning much further in the future than he thought it would... and may end up meaning never.

 

\---------

 

The first full day in the basement office together isn't nearly as uncomfortable as Scully had feared. They discuss the case, they argue back and forth over semantics and specifics, and Mulder commends Scully for managing to hang onto the foreign object found in Ray Soames' nasal cavity when all the other evidence was lost in the motel room fire.

Of course, in the same breath, he harangues her for turning it over to Blevins and company so readily, thereby allowing it to disappear along with her report, and all the other evidence that this case ever existed, but she tries not to take any of it personally. She's almost as frustrated over the loss of their work as he is, and she's glad she at least printed an extra copy of her report, which he's filed away. She's had a look in that filing cabinet, and she doesn't know what system he's using, but it's completely perplexing to her. She makes a mental note to get him to explain it.

"Got plans for this weekend?" Mulder asks casually, as it gets closer to five o'clock. She cringes inwardly. _Here it comes,_ she thinks to herself. 

"Actually, I'm going out of town," she says. "Just for tonight and tomorrow night. Ethan came home early, and he surprised me with a couple of days at a bed and breakfast in Ocean City." Mulder's head snaps up.

"Oh?" he asks, his voice strained. She nods. "Guess you two patched things up, then, huh?" She bites her lip.

"Look, Mulder...." But he's already bending over, packing up his briefcase, not looking at her. 

"I hope you have a great time," he says.

"Mulder... I've been with him for over a year. He wants to fix what's not working, and I owe it to him to at least try."

"You don't owe me any explanations, Scully," Mulder says. "Listen, I'm gonna knock off a few minutes early, okay? I'll see you on Monday." He stands and heads for the door.

"Mulder...."

"Scully." He stops, his hand on the doorknob, and turns to look at her. "It's all right." He gives her a painful smile. "Just forget about it, okay?" He opens the door and strides through it. "Have a great weekend," he calls over his shoulder, and the door closes behind him.

In the silence he leaves behind, the air still crackling with the remnants of the tension that hummed between them, Scully has a fleeting thought, irrational though it may be, that she's made the wrong choice.

**Author's Note:**

> The ending. I know. Please don't yell at me. This is only the third installment in a long series!


End file.
